


the price

by kitoky



Category: Reign (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 18:30:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5101220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitoky/pseuds/kitoky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Based off of the 3x04 'the price' promo.]</p><p>Mary is desperate to save Francis as the end grows near, despite their plans and promises for the future. Delphine falls into her lap, and she is more than willing to trade her life - whatever the cost, whatever that means.</p><p>If only death was so easily tamed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the price

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a 'what-if' based on the coming episode, going off of the promo for 3x04. Also character death, because I hate happiness. Although I wouldn't say it was _major_ character death, because I don't hate happiness that much.
> 
> All canon before 3x04 also apply. Unbeta'd and written in a rush. Excuse the errors and please review.

The name Delphine has scarcely passed her ears let alone for it to trigger any remembrance in Mary. Yet when Francis’s brothers, Charles and Bash, led the pathetic looking creature into the royal bedchambers, it was like hope had sprung eternal. She had no impressive look to her, covered in dirt and grime, evidence of having been out in the wilderness for weeks. Delphine stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the splendidly dressed royals.

 

“Please,” Mary starts, hands gripping each other – afraid to step too close to the other woman for fear of frightening her. “You have a skill – a gift – that we are desperately in need of.”

 

Delphine shoots a wary look between the Queen of Scots and the still figure upon the bed, the King of France. “Whatever you ask in return, I will grant it. Riches, titles – no price is too great for what we need,” Mary reassures.

 

“Your Majesty, I beseech you,” the court physician implores from behind her. “This is heresy. The ungodly worship of the pagans.”

 

“Silence!” Mary orders, her breath hitches in her throat at how Delphine narrows her gaze at the man’s scorn. “Leave us. You have done quite enough – or not enough for your King and country.”

 

“My queen…” When she swerves to level her glare at him, daring him to speak another word, he capitulates and shuffles out.

 

Mary once again focuses all her attentions on Delphine, “I, the Queen of France and of Scotland, am begging you. Save your King, my husband.” The other woman had hardly spoken since entering the chambers and it felt like the opportunity was slipping.

 

“We can always force her,” Charles says, unhelpful as it was. Mary swallows hard having not the energy to educate him on when a request is more effective than a decree.

 

“You speak of a price…” the sound of her mousy voice gives Mary pause.

 

“Yes, yes,” she cries. “Anything you ask.”

 

“Can you pay the price of life?”

 

The lines of the queen’s face furrow in confusion, “Of life?”

 

Only then did Bash interject, “There is a price for the healing. The price of another’s life.”

 

“A life for a life, that is the only way to keep the balance,” states Delphine. The simple law of nature, of God.

 

For the past week, Francis had been steadily growing more ill. Some days she’d been unable to coax him awake to eat let alone anything else. The weakening king had been unresponsive in days past with the court physician finally admitting that his time are surely now numbered. Mary had hardly left his side, only leaving to handle the delicate and tumultuous dealings at French court, both of foreign and local nature. The Queen Mother has been a great help to Mary, which was a great deal of a surprise, but a welcome one. Catherine was emotionally strong, hearty, and could balance her business much more effortlessly than Mary herself.

 

The mere thought of saying goodbye to Francis broke Mary to pieces. It was different to plan their farewells, to whisper sweet promises to each other when her husband was still conscious, standing on his own, protecting her even as his body slowly collapsed beneath him. To see him as he is now, motionless and still, a deadly pallor, and the angry stream of blood from his ears. No, she could bear it no longer. She would do anything, sacrifice anything.

 

“Please,” she heaves, the tears freshly anew. “If the price is my life for his… bring him back.”

 

Bash went to her then, “Mary. Francis could never ask you to give your life.”

 

“I know, but he has given the last of his for me. If there is a chance – any at all – we must try.”

 

Mary takes Delphine’s hands in hers, grip strong and encouraging. “Do what you can. I know of the miracles that exist – I have seen it when Nostradamus was still at court. I ask it of you now.” Delphine nods, slowly making her way through the canopy closer to the bed. Mary lets their hands fall, “Bring him back to me.”

 

The pagan woman set to closing the curtains, obscuring their view. There is a knot in Mary’s throat at being unable to be with her husband.

 

“I will need the room, Bash,” Delphine says and Bash throws Mary an apologetic look.

 

As Sebastian ushers both Mary and Charles out into the antechamber, Mary is able to catch one last glance at Delphine’s silhouette leaning over the bed before the heavy doors shuttered closed inches in front of her face.

 

 

 

 

+++

 

 

 

 

“Good morning, my lady,” Jean’s nanny greeted her as Lola approached the nursery.

 

“Good morning, nanny,” the Lady Narcisse beams. “Has the darling been up long?”

 

“Why no, Lady Lola,” Nanny said. “The boy’s still sound asleep. Not a peep.”

 

 _Strange_. _It’s nearly mid-day,_ Lola thinks, but gives Nanny a warm smile. “Best to get him up. He can’t develop such bad habits so young.” Nanny agrees, getting up from her chair to follow Lola into Jean’s room.

 

“I understand, Lady, but growing babies only want to sleep as much as they need,” Nanny says fondly.

 

“Has Jean been a trouble for you?” Lola asks, surprised. She frowns when she pulls the blanket down to better see her son’s face. Something was wrong.

 

“No, no,” her nanny smiles. “I’ve looked after many a babe in my day – after a dozen, you’ll likely see they’re all the same really… My lady?”

 

Lola brushed a hand over her son’s head, nudging his belly gently with the other. It took little coaxing to wake the boy, especially when the sun shone so brightly into his room, but today he would not budge. His face seemed paler than usual, and Lola felt a dread deep in her belly. “Nanny, get the physician quickly.” Lola commanded, her voice strained. When Nanny started to ask—“Go! Now!” Nanny scurries away as fast as her old legs could take her.

 

“Jean, darling,” Lola called, shaking her son in earnest. No response. Her heart leapt to her throat, her hands began to shake.

 

“JEAN!!”

 

 

 

+++

 

 

 

A miracle. An utter miracle.

 

Daylight streamed in through the window, but having spent the night waiting outside the bedchamber for Delphine’s work to be done felt like the easiest thing after seeing the sight before her.

 

Francis sitting upright, smiling meekly – albeit still weakly – at her. Mary pressed two hands to her mouth, unable to find the words.

 

 _He’s alive_. Still as silent as a church mouse, she slowly draws closer – afraid that sudden movements might disrupt this fragile reality. They had found Delphine exhausted and fast asleep across the foot of the bed, and Bash was good enough to carry her out and find her a place to rest. She would be generously reward, Mary decides. And she still had her life, whatever the price. She was still here, and Francis _was alive_.

 

“Could this be real?” she asks, barely able to hear her own voice.

 

“Either this is an impossibly perfect heaven or I am still very much alive,” Francis grins, releasing a breathy chuckle. A cough cuts his laughter short, and Mary would be worried but his countenance has just improved a hundredfold. Charles enters then, having retrieved Catherine and Claude.

 

“My boy!” / “Francis!” the mother-daughter pair exclaim at once, joy and gladness rich in their surprise.

 

The happiness of the royal family was short lived, however, as Lord Narcisse enters in a whirlwind, his face wrought with distress and fear. The sight of a conscious and very much alive King of France only gives him the slightest pause, until he manages to say—

 

“Something has happened to Jean-Philippe.”

 

The elation that Mary feels turns to horror.

 

 

 

+++

 

 

 

 _A life for a life_.

 

 

The funeral is a private affair with only the royal family and close friends in attendance. Lola has Francis’s steady hand clutched in hers as the cruelly small casket is lowered into the ground. They had grieved together, as only parents could grieve for their child taken too soon from this world. Mary had explained the circumstances behind Francis’s miraculous recovery and Jean’s… well, Jean. She had begged for forgiveness, and while Francis was quicker to grant it, Lola was complacent in her absolution.

 

Mary could not ask more from her dearest friend, and could only imagine the grief she carried. She had lost pregnancies, and even those had felt like a rip from her own heart. Yet to carry and nurture a baby, see it grow, hold it in your arms and witnessed its exploration in life… only to lose it. What heart would there be left to rip a piece from?

 

The Lady Narcisse retreated to her chambers for weeks after Jean’s death. No servants attended her, and no visitors permitted with the exception of her lord husband and King Francis. After a week of requesting an audience with Lola, she was finally allowed admittance.

 

“I know things could ever be the same between us again,” Mary says, trying to keep the tears from her voice. “But you should know… there is nothing I wouldn’t give to undo what happened.”

 

Lola is quiet, rubbing the fabric of her skirt against itself. Her friend looks poorly. Mary doubts she’d been eating and the queen can see the rash around her eyes. “It is kind of you to say,” she hears Lola’s near inaudible reply. “Were you to choose again, you would have done the same.”

 

And Mary could not argue that truth. When it came down to it, she would want Francis’s life to be saved. Selfish as it may seem, and selfish as it may very well be. She meant what she said.

 

“I offered my life for his,” Mary clenches her hands at her elbows, standing across from Lola.

 

“Foolish,” is the weak berate. The Queen of Scots discretely wipes the tears from her cheeks. “I’d have done the same...” Lola lifts her head to hold Mary’s gaze. “Had I your courage.”

 

 

 

 

+++

 

 

 

“You want to take her away?”

 

Lord Narcisse nods his confirmation to King Francis. The pair strode at a lasting pace down a corridor with the royal guard meters behind. “It will do her good, I believe. To be at court with the whispers and gossip and the constant reminder that Jean is no longer with us…”

 

Francis grimaces, still pained to feel the meaning of those words. “She would not want to leave her friends.”

 

“Lola will return, in her own time. Right now she needs distance from the memories and to renew her purpose,” Narcisse pauses. “This feeling of being adrift… I am very familiar with.”

 

The king halts in his step, resting his palms against the pummel of his sword. _Eduard_. The man was a villain and a murderer, yet he was still a son. Whatever the circumstances, Francis saw Narcisse in a new light. The nobleman had sacrificed himself to rescue Jean-Philippe and Lola when Catherine had schemed their false kidnapping and murders. Who knew fate could have such wicked humors?

 

“I had given you my blessing to marry Lady Lola when I saw death ahead of me,” Francis says. “I trusted you to take care of her. I still do, only now I’ll be alive to see that you do.”

 

 

 

+++

 

 

 

The wind whipped her hair about her face, the salt in the air filled her lungs. The feel of the sea so close made her ache for home – for Scotland. So often did she yearn for the high cliffsides of the Lowlands, to feel the lush grass beneath her feet. Narcisse had taken her to the seaside somewhere along the southeast border of France. Lola hardly had the energy these days, but her lord husband had been gentle and kind and patient with her, she could not refuse his plans to take her away.

 

Perhaps in some ways, she was glad for a change of scenery.

 

It was no Scottish Lowlands, but it will certainly do.

 

Strong arms wound their way below hers, Narcisse grasping her hands in each of his own. The gale brought a coolness around them, but the warmth of his chest against her back consoled her. Though tragedy filled their early weeks of marriage, her familiarity with his embrace had come from need of his comforts. His whispered gentle assurances, his understanding. She had made a home in his arms, one that could rival her childhood in the House of Douglas.

 

The scent and feel of him surrounded her, contrasting against the blustery winds.

 

 _Yes,_ she thinks. _A new home._

_A new beginning._

 

 

 


End file.
